g
tune, so rollicking and irresistible that hands and feet all through the
rooms began to pat the time. Keith seized his Aunt Allison around the
waist and waltzed her out into the floor.

"Come on, everybody!" he cried.

Lloyd was standing in the doorway, talking to Doctor Shelby, the
white-haired physician of the village, one of her oldest and dearest
friends.

"Go on, Miss Holly-berry," he said. "If I wasn't such a stiff old
graybeard, I'd be at it myself. There's Ranald wanting to ask you."

Lloyd waltzed off with Ranald, as light on her feet as a bit of
thistle-down, and the old doctor's eyes followed her fondly.

"She's like Amanthis," he said to himself. "And she will grow more like
her as the years go by, so spirited and high-strung. But they'll have to
watch her, or she'll wear herself out."

Presently he missed the flash of the scarlet dress, in and out among
the others, and he did not see it again until the music had stopped and
the revel was ending with the chimes, rung softly on the Bells of Luzon.
As he stepped back to allow several guests to pass him on the way up to
the dressing-room, he caught sight of Lloyd in an alcove in the back
hall. She was attempting to draw a glass of ice-water from the cooler.
Her hands shook, and her face was so pale that it startled him. "What's
the matter, child?" he exclaimed.

"Nothing," she answered, trying to force a little laugh. "It's just that
I felt for a minute as if I might faint. I nevah did, you know. I reckon
it's as Kitty said. We've been wound up all day, and we've run so hah'd
we've about run down, and we have to stop whethah we want to or not."

He looked at her keenly and began counting her pulse. "You are not to
get wound up this way any more this winter, young lady," he said,
sternly. "Go straight home and go to bed, and stay there until day after
to-morrow. The rest cure is what you need."

"And miss Katie Mallard's pah'ty?" she cried. "Why, I couldn't do it
even for you, you bad old ogah."

She made a saucy mouth at him, and then, with her most winning smile,
held out her hand to say good night, for the guests were beginning to
take their departure. "_Please_, Mistah _My_-Doctah,"--it was the pet
name she had given him years ago when she used to ride on his
shoulder,--"please don't go to putting any notions into Papa Jack's head
or mothah's. I'm just ti'ahed. That's all. I'll be all right in the
mawning."

"Come, Lloyd," called Mrs. Sherman